


Kudoclasm

by agentwhalesong



Series: Words of Obscure Sorrows [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV, F/M, Gen, Hopefully this will have a happy ending, MSR, Scully's POV, filling the gaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-06 12:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentwhalesong/pseuds/agentwhalesong
Summary: Scully's POV of My Struggle IV.





	1. Impossibilities and improbabilities

She looked in the mirror for the thousandth time. This couldn’t be, and yet, it was. How would she tell Mulder? When? All she knew for now was that she needed to follow her doctor’s orders and rest. Going out in the field was out of the question, for her safety and the baby’s.

Dana Katherine Scully was having a baby at 54 years old, against all improbabilities and impossibilities in the world. She knew cases of women who got pregnant at that age, sometimes even older, but those women hadn’t been abducted, hadn’t had their ova harvested, hadn’t gotten pregnant in spite of that, hadn’t had a miracle baby, hadn’t believed that said miracle baby was their last chance of having a family.

She picked up the phone to let Mulder know she had been to the hospital and she heard all the usual questions coming from the other end of the line: when? Why? Do you need me to come over? Do you want to come over? Do you need anything? Are you okay? What did the doctor say? How long do you need to rest for? She even heard the question he didn’t ask: is there any chance it could be cancer again?

He knew better than to ask that, but she knew the question poked his mind sometimes. Hell, it poked hers too. Sometimes, she just wished for peace in her life, without all the stress of not knowing what was coming next for them. There was always something coming next.

She reassured him she was going to be okay, that she just needed to rest and be out of the field for a few days, until she knew it was safe. She heard him open his mouth to say something about the word she used, but he didn’t make any other comments other than that he would drop by later to check on her. She smiled. It felt good to feel this loved again.

She put her phone down and couldn’t help laughing at herself when she felt yet another sign of morning sickness. How had she not noticed? When she didn’t get her period the first month, she thought it was a sign that menopause was coming for her and, quite honestly, she was ready to accept that that’s what it was. She didn’t worry, but she vowed to set an appointment with her doctor just to check if everything was okay. Well, now she didn’t need to anymore.

She looked around her, wondering why the hell she had gotten such a large house for just herself. It felt too big, too spacious, especially now that Daggoo was gone and she had no one to share the house with. It didn’t feel this big, this empty when Mulder came over, but he never stayed more than two nights in a row and, when he left, she was also left with the feeling of emptiness and loneliness that surrounded her daily. She wondered if that was what he had felt when she left him.

She sighed to try and shake the sad thoughts away as she walked by one of the spare bedrooms. It would make a good nursery – the right size, close enough to her bedroom, close enough to the other rooms in the house… it just needed a little painting and a little changing to make it cozier, but she could already picture a crib in there, a mobile hovering over it… She remembered William and how he loved that mobile over his crib and she didn’t fight back the tears that inevitably streamed down her face, contrasting with the smile that suddenly made an appearance at the same time.

William.

She still had hopes of finding him. Maybe he would be comfortable enough to visit them one day when all this was over, and she prayed with all she had in her for this to be over soon. She couldn’t take this heartache much longer without breaking her spirit. Would he ever think of her as his mother? She hadn’t raised him, so she couldn’t expect him to love her right away, or even care about her, for that matter. But she couldn’t help hoping he would understand all she did was out of love, even though now she knew that his safety had never depended on her being around or not. If she had stood by him, things might have taken a different turn and she didn’t like to think that maybe, in her haste to save her son, she had actually put him in more danger.

Her cell phone rang and she chuckled to herself before picking it up. Mulder couldn’t really believe her when she said she was okay, could he? But when she took it out of her pocket, an unknown number was on the display.

“Scully,” she answered in her usual tone.

“Dana, this is Monica Reyes. I don’t have much time, but I need to talk to you. It’s about your son.”


	2. An old friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully reflects on Monica's phone call

“Hold on, Monica, what are you saying? How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been working with someone, someone you won’t approve, but it’s only to help you out. Like I said, I don’t have time to explain because he will be back soon. I’ll have an address ready for you in about 10 minutes.”

Scully heard the click on the other end of the line as Monica hung up. Who could she possibly be working with? When she and Mulder returned to the FBI two years ago, she looked Monica up and was surprised to find her files had all been wiped out, as if she had never even been an FBI agent to begin with. Her first thought at the time was that she had probably been offered a job to work with something highly classified, something that went way above their paygrade, because she tried hard not to think that maybe Monica had sacrificed her career for her and Mulder just for being loyal. Because if there was one thing she had learned in the almost two years they worked together was that Monica was nothing but loyal to those she loved.

Now, as she searched her own mind for a sign of what might be really happening, she had a thought that displeased her greatly, but it was not out of the realm of extreme possibility. Had she gone rogue? Was that why she seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Earth? What about John, what had happened to him? When she looked Monica up she also looked John up, but his most recent bureau records were from 2002, as if he had just retired at a somewhat young age and never come back.

Scully picked her car keys and sent Mulder a quick message to say she was coming over, but she didn’t explain why.

She was almost at the gate of that unremarkable house in the middle of nowhere when her cell phone rang again, the same unknown number being displayed on the screen.

“Monica?”

“I have an address, but you’ll have to be quick. William is on a plane which will land soon.”

Scully almost jumped out of the car and walked fast to the front door, not bothering to even park correctly.

“Hold on, I’m almost at Mulder’s. I’ll need him for this.”

She heard Monica let out a small ‘oh’ and she remembered she probably didn’t know about the turbulence that had been hers and Mulder’s relationship in the past few years.

“I thought you were still together, I’m sorry.”

She would have smiled if she weren’t so worried about it all. She missed talking to Monica.

“We are together now, but it’s still complicated. It’s been a couple of rough years.”

Scully reached the front door and entered without knocking.

“I’ll put you on speaker phone.”

She heard Monica relay all the information she had to Mulder and her voice triggered Scully’s visions for some reason. Scully saw the plane, but she didn’t see William. Was it possible that Monica was lying?

“When you say ‘last good chance’, what exactly do you mean?”

Mulder said, while already walking around and preparing to leave. His gun, his wallet, and whatever else he thought he needed had already been shoved into his jacket pocket.

“The person who controls your son is the person who controls the future.”

When Monica hung up, Scully had little hope that her info was right. Besides, she could not help thinking something was off with it all. Why was Monica being so cryptic, why did she talk as if there could be someone listening?

“He’s not in that plane, Mulder.”

“Do you have any reason to distrust her?”

“I don’t know how I know, I just know that he’s not on that plane.”

“What if he is on the plane? What if this is our last good chance?”

Mulder’s persistence went back to what she had whispered to him while they stood on that church, in front of all those candles that seemed to light her way in more than a metaphorical way. She had told him her goal was to find William, to save him from whoever was trying to hurt him, and that she believed she could do it, but not alone. She knew right then that Mulder had instantly taken her quest as his own and that he wouldn’t stop for nothing in this world. Nothing except maybe what she hadn’t told him yet.

She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. He was right, her visions weren’t 100% accurate, it seemed. What if Monica was right and this was their last good chance? She remembered her visions. She saw Monica in them, but she couldn’t remember exactly what was happening or what Monica told her. She just knew it was something of extreme importance and she believed her.

“Just come back alive,” she said hesitantly.

She saw as Mulder’s eyes studied her, knowing that there was something she was not telling him, but at this point in their relationship, she knew he knew there was a reason for everything she said or did not say. They knew each other well enough to know that silence was as important as words in their conversations.

He nodded, but he took a few steps back before he headed for the door. She knew he had too many questions in his head that she couldn’t answer right now and he knew it was important not to ask them until he finished the task at hand. She also knew he was worried about her as much as he was worried about finding their son.

As he closed the door behind him, she stared blankly at some point in the room, praying silently that he could find William before the bad guys did, praying that he indeed came back alive. She had survived his death once, she wouldn’t survive it again.

 


	3. Conflicted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Mulder is away, Scully tries to help as best as she can

Working with him from a distance was the worst thing in the world, but it was the most she could do for now. She opened Mulder’s laptop to try and find something she could work with, maybe a clue to where William was headed or how they found him in the first place. She remembered Monica’s words and started searching for anything that happened in Tennessee in the past week. It didn’t take her long to find out that a young man who had never been seen around had won the lottery and had disappeared after collecting the money the same way he had appeared. Scully chuckled softly. It sounded a lot like something a teenager with superpowers would do. More importantly, it sounded a lot like something young Dana Scully would have done in her teenage years if she had superpowers. Maybe she and William had more in common than she had originally thought.

She pressed Mulder’s number on her speed dial and waited for him to pick up. One, two, three, four, five, six rings. She had no reason to be worried, maybe he just hadn’t listened. She tried again two more times and, on the third, she was ready to get in her car herself and go after him. If her doctor knew what Mulder was like, maybe she would have gotten a free pass to go out in the field instead of being left worrying about him, feeling powerless.

_Come on, Mulder, don’t do this to me._

He picked up on the fourth attempt and she finally let out the breath she had been holding for the past few minutes, sighing heavily as he told her she was right, and that William wasn’t on the plane. She said a silent prayer, thankful for Mulder’s safety and for the fact that William had once again gotten away from evil. Smart kid.

She told Mulder about the lotto cluster, hoping she would be able to finish her sentence before throwing up. The last thing she needed was for him to worry about her now. He hung up and she ran to the bathroom as fast as she could.

 

\----

She stared at herself in the mirror for a few moments, analyzing the person she saw in front of her. She was proud of who she had become, how far she had come and what she had done with her life. The only thing she still regretted was the decision she had made 16 years ago, and she hoped she was on her way to fix it. As if William had sensed she was thinking of him, visions started coming to her in flashes. She couldn’t make sense of them all, but she saw the smoking man (why wasn’t he dead yet?), William, Mulder, an ultrasound (was it her own?) and Mulder lying on the ground with blood on his clothes. She suddenly felt her heart pound inside her chest and her phone rang as if in response to her thoughts. She ran downstairs again because she knew it was Mulder and, somehow, she also knew he was on the right track. Her connection to William was becoming stronger for some reason, and she was beginning to see things more clearly. She knew now that her son was the only piece left to complete the puzzle and, whoever got to him first, had control of humanity.

Mulder reassured her on the phone that he would find him, and she found it funny that in the past that would have been enough to comfort her. If she closed her eyes now and said ‘there’s no place like home’ a few times, would she wake up in her bed, 18 years in the past, and find out it had all been a dream? It was honestly the only thing that she could think of that could get them out of this mess.

She took a deep breath, trying to make her brain think clearly. Her emotions were getting the best of her and it wasn’t helping anyone. Suddenly, the name Tad O’Malley popped into her mind and, although she would have discarded this option on a normal day, now she thought this might be the only thing to buy them some time. Maybe letting the population know something was wrong would delay their plans just enough until they could find William. At least she had to try.

\---

Her next vision was stronger, more powerful, more vivid, and what she saw almost made her scream. Checking up on Mulder every five minutes was exhausting, but she had to know what was happening. She didn’t know exactly how he was doing it, but William seemed not only to be sharing his visions with her, but also trying to communicate. She could feel it in her heart, almost as if she had really talked to him, that he was telling her through the visions that it was too dangerous for them to go after him.

She was so conflicted and confused that she couldn’t think straight anymore. They had to find William for the sake of humanity, but at the same time, it was almost as if William had been telling her he was willing to sacrifice himself before he would let anyone get ahold of him.

She cried from frustration when Mulder hung up on her, but she couldn’t really explain all this to him and make him understand, not now that he was on a mission. She had known him for half her life and she knew that, when he was on a mission, he wouldn’t stop for anything in the world, not even her. The only time she could never get through to him was when his obsession with something was at its peak.

His obsession was what had always frustrated her, what had brought them together, what had made her fall in love with him and what had broken them apart. It was both a blessing and a curse, and she could only hope that it was not what was going to kill him.

_Please, be safe, Mulder. Please, be safe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I was trying to write something happier, but this is what came out because this episode hurts. I promise this won’t stay like this forever.  
> Also, I'm sorry if this is going too slow, but I'm still trying to process everything that happened in this episode.


	4. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully and Skinner drive to the Sugar Factory

“He’s lying,” she spat out right away when Skinner finished telling her what the cancer man had told him about William.

He was wrong, oh, so wrong! She was William’s mother and Mulder was William’s father. It had always been this way and it would always be, no matter what that cigarette son of a bitch of a man told them.

There had been questions in the beginning about how she had gotten pregnant even though she had been told by many, many doctors that she was unable to conceive. There had been questions about the true nature of her child, about why everyone seemed to be going after her and her unborn baby, about why he seemed to be the main piece in the puzzle of a global conspiracy since he was an embryo, about how that embryo even came to be. But when it came down to it, she knew the truth and so did Mulder.

They had started sleeping together a little after New Year’s, a little after he kissed her in that hospital hallway while they watched the beginning of the new millennium through a 14-inch screen. When she found out she was pregnant, she made the necessary calculations and there was no doubt about when their child had stopped being just an abstract idea buried deep in her brain and started being a palpable, concrete life she would soon hold in her arms. It had taken Mulder a little more time to process for he had been dead for a good part of her pregnancy, but he finally came to the same conclusion she did. He had sealed his conclusion with a kiss while holding their son in his arms and she remembered feeling so safe she ventured to believe that was truly their happy ending, or better yet, their happy beginning. Oh boy, had she been wrong!

Skinner had been silent, apparently giving her time to process what he had just told her. She appreciated him being there for them through so many years, always having their backs, even when it seemed he wasn’t.

She smiled, thinking that he had been the first one to know she was pregnant with William and wondering if he would be too surprised if she told him now that there was another baby boy or girl on the way. But this time she was lucky enough that Mulder was alive and she could tell him before telling anyone else. Maybe she would tell Skinner after that because he deserved to know. Even if Kersh made good on his word and shut them down once again and fired them both, Skinner was a friend, despite how many times they had questioned his loyalty throughout the years.

Mulder made a sudden turn and Skinner step on the break to be able to keep following him.

“Damn it, Mulder! Use your turn signal when you know you’re being followed!”

Scully couldn’t help but laugh at her future former boss and he smiled a little at her. At least the air wasn’t so thick with tension anymore.

“Thanks for doing this for us, Walter.”

Skinner just nodded as he pulled over near the sugar factory.

Scully got out of the car and went in search of Mulder. She noticed Skinner wasn’t right behind her, but she didn’t question why. She knew he would catch up with them soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this is a shorter chapter, I just felt it needed to be separate from the others that are coming later on.


	5. Maybe there's hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully understands what William had been trying to tell her.

She didn’t have much time to make sense of what had just happened. She had, once again, talked to her son without knowing that it was him she had been talking to. He had asked her simply and plainly to let it go, to let _him_ go. But how could she let go? How could she let him go after these many years, after carrying the feeling that she had failed him for almost two decades of her life? How could she move on with her life knowing he was out there and that he was in danger? But when she thought of it, wasn’t it what had happened already in the last 16 years?

She ran up the stairs after him, still thinking about what he had said to her.

_He knows you love him._

This seeing-one-person-but-talking-to-another thing was becoming annoying. She just wanted to see her son’s true face, study his features up-close. She had watched him countless times on that tape they got from the convenience store the first time they met, but like Mulder, she too was tired of looking at him on video. She just wanted a chance of hugging her son at least once. Was it too much to ask? She had never been one to take pity on herself or feel like a victim, but sometimes she wished life would give her a break, if not a reward.

She shouted his name once again, even though she knew it was useless. He had made his statement, he wanted them to be as far away from him as they could. She kept running anyway, hoping against hope that he would change his mind, that he would allow himself to be protected. She could protect him this time, she could.

Suddenly, Jeffrey Spender’s words from when she gave William up replayed in her mind.

_And if you can’t?_

She stopped running for a while and sighed. He was right, they were both right. Both the Jeffrey Spender in her head and William were right. She couldn’t, no one could.

They couldn’t protect him, not when he was stronger and more powerful than Mulder, Scully and the entire FBI combined, not when conspirators didn’t stand a chance near him, but people close to him got hurt just because they weren’t super humans. She had seen the pain in what she thought were Mulder’s eyes in that brief conversation they’d had. She too would want every good person in the world to be far away from her, if she were in his shoes. She understood now.

She had let him go once for his own safety, now she would have to do it again for their own. The only person who could protect William Scully-Mulder, the baby she had given up, was his older, stronger version, Jackson Van de Kamp.

 

\----

 

_He doesn’t want to be found._

The words William said played in her mind as Mulder told her William was gone, that he had been shot. In another life, none of this would make sense to her, but in this one, everything was starting to fall into place.

She thought of what Skinner had told her in the car, about how William had been an experiment all along, much like her impossible daughter Emily, who had died before she could get to know her. She had never been a mother to William, the same way she had never been a mother to Emily. William was her miracle baby, but he was raised by somebody else because she didn’t have the courage to stand by him. Maybe if William had stayed with her, things would have been different, things could have been better, or maybe things could also have been way worse. There were so many ‘what ifs’, but it wouldn’t do her any good thinking about this now.

What she knew was that she finally understood what William’s plan had been all along: to sacrifice himself before he could be the reason for the world’s demise, or at least make people think that was what he was doing.

She looked at Mulder, so heartbroken, so devastated, and her heart sank to have to tell him what she was going to say next. But she knew she had to, there was no other way. She had seen what his obsession with finding Samantha had done to him throughout the years, she had seen how his obsession with finding the truth had turned him into a fugitive, she had seen firsthand how his obsession with the end of the world had destroyed their relationship. Having seen all that, she knew better than anyone what his obsession with finding his son could do to him. His obsessions could destroy him, and she loved him too much to let it happen, especially given what she knew now.

So, she spoke the words that she had heard from William and the ones she had thought of just now, that William wanted them to let him go, that he wasn’t meant to be, that he was an experiment, that she had never been a mother to him. The words hurt more when spoken out loud than when she thought of them, and she felt tears sting her eyes.

She knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince Mulder to let go, but she knew he would get there eventually. She needed him to, for his sake and for William’s.

“For so long… I believed. What am I now if I’m not a father?”

She was devasted by seeing him so broken. It was then that she knew it was the right time to tell him. Maybe this one piece of good news would make him believe her, would make him see a silver lining, would make him stop and obsess with something good for once in his life.

“You are a father.”

She didn’t know if he would understand right away, so she waited for his reaction.

“What are you talking about?”

She knew there was no better way of explaining it than what she was about to do. She took his right hand and placed it on her stomach.

She saw understanding take over him slowly and she wanted to answer ‘yes’ to all the questions he was silently asking her. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time. It was such a relief to finally get this off her chest that she let the tears flow freely down her face as he tried to make sense of it all.

“That’s impossible.”

 “I know… I know… it’s… more than impossible.”

She sobbed into his chest as he hugged her and rocked her gently, placing his chin on the top of her head. She loved how they fit perfectly together.

They stayed like that for what seemed an eternity until he loosened his grip around her and cupped her face, tracing circles with his thumbs on her cheeks.

“I love you so, so much!” His voice was hoarse from crying and it made his words even more powerful.

He bent down and pressed his lips against hers in a chaste, long kiss. It felt so good that she almost forgot all her worries in those few seconds.

They broke apart and she looked into his eyes. He was smiling now.

“I love you, too,” she said.

She smiled back at him, wondering if she should say something else, but decided against it. Anything she said now would be pointless. He just needed time to process his son’s death and his daughter’s life (she didn’t know the sex yet, but she had a feeling it was going to be a girl). William could never be replaced and that was not what she was trying to do, but at least now they had the chance of being there for their child, for better or for worse. Maybe they could protect this one.

He kissed her forehead and then took her hand in his.

“Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded.

As they walked towards the exist of the dock, she felt something in her head, the unmistakable sign of her connection with William. She smiled, relieved that she had been right about him and about what he had intended with his plan. More importantly, that his plan had succeeded. Being alive while everyone thinks you’re dead can be a good way to survive.

She thought of all the rooms in her big house and the one she had planned to be his. She couldn’t help but hope that he would come by one day. She would be waiting when he did.

 


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little closure to some favorite characters that deserved better. William's POV.

At 11 years old, Jackson Van de Kamp found out he held the power of life and death in his hands. He liked to show off to his friends by making birds get out of their eggs, but that was not all he could do.

Once, he found a dead squirrel by the road. He sat beside it, studying it, curious, a question forming in his head: if he could speed up the process of life, like he did when he made the birds get out of their eggs, could he also bring something back to life? He stroked the animal’s fur slowly, concentrating on something he didn’t know exactly what, but that came to him naturally. He closed his eyes, feeling all his energy go to his fingertips. In a matter of seconds, he felt the animal move under his hand and he opened his eyes to see it running away, as if it had just laid down to rest a little. His heart pounded heavily inside his chest and he didn’t know if it was the effort he had just done or the excitement of this new discovery, but he had never felt more alive.

 

\---

Jackson got out of the water slowly, being careful not to be seen by the two people who were holding each other in a tight embrace just a few feet away from him. He was glad she had understood what he had meant when he met her in the sugar factory. He hadn’t intended to stop back there, but he needed to see her, to talk to her and make her understand, even if it was in the shape of another person.

He walked towards an alley, still shaking a little for having been in the cold water. He stopped for a while and studied his options: a) there was a ladder by the end of the alley which he could easily climb and get away from there or b) he could just go back and walk out in the open until he eventually met someone who would start asking him questions and he would have to shed more blood just to try to escape. He was tired of that, so he chose option a.

There was a completely wrecked car under the ladder he would have to climb, and he knew whose car it was: his father’s, who was also coincidently the man he hated most in the world.

He had seen the man just half an hour ago, pointing a gun at him. What Carl Bush – apparently that was the cigarette smoking man’s name – didn’t know, couldn’t predict, was that Jackson knew what his plans were, and he was ready to destroy them. He had seen the man’s mind, he had seen how he, Jackson Van de Kamp, was the most important piece in his puzzle, and he had found an opportunity there of escaping all this and destroying all his plans at the same time. By becoming Fox Mulder, he could make the bastard shoot him, believing he was actually shooting his first-born son. The man didn’t know he could heal himself, that any wound would just come back to normal in a few seconds, so he knew he had a solid plan in his hands. Jackson was still very confused with all of this, he couldn’t understand much of his blood relation to these men, but he had talked to Fox Mulder and he knew he truly believed he was his biological father. If he believed it, he believed it too. He had a feeling he and Mulder would have gotten along well, had they met in different circumstances.

 

Now, as he walked closer to the car, he realized there was someone in the driver’s seat, a woman. He recognized her instantly as the woman who was always with the cigarette smoking man. Monica Reyes, he had heard someone say once.

He didn’t know her personally, but he knew that, although she walked amongst the bad guys, she wasn’t bad herself. He had seen her a few times, a tough expression on her face, ordering people around as if she was ready to kill them all if they didn’t do exactly as they were told, but on the inside, he saw nothing but good in her. Yes, he admitted having peaked inside her mind a few times because he was intrigued, but frankly, mostly just because he could. He had seen then that she was trying to gather information so that she could help a redheaded woman, the same redheaded woman that had lulled him to sleep every night for the first 10 months of his life. He knew then he could count on her if there ever came a time when he would need to. Sadly, they had never crossed paths again until now.

He was about to open the car door when he saw someone was lying on the ground, half his body poking out from under the car. He crouched to see the man’s face. This was probably the man his birth mother had referred to when she heard the shots while he tried to talk to her. Skinner was his name, if he remembered correctly. He realized the man was still alive, but barely.

He stood up and considered his options once again. Soon the police would be there, and he would have to run away again. He was free from the smoking man and whoever else was also looking for him, but it was just a matter of time before those people could be replaced and he would be chased down again. He didn’t have time to save people’s lives because he had to save his own.

He sighed as he looked at the expressionless face of the woman in the front seat of the car. She deserved better than be left out here as if she had never done anything meaningful in her life. In his book, she was actually a hero.

He ran his hands through his hair, resigning to the fact that he couldn’t just get away from it all without feeling guilty for the first time in his life.

He patted the man’s pants and found his cell phone. Then, he did something he never thought he would do: he dialed 911.

“Help… I’ve been… run over… I… can’t…” He said in a convincing voice.

Then, he carefully placed the cell phone in the man’s hand without turning it off. He knew the police would try to track his location and hopefully the man would be safe when the paramedics got there.

He looked at Monica through the shattered windshield. If he wanted to save her, he would have to act fast before the police got there. He went to the driver’s side and opened the door, touching her forehead, already starting to concentrate. He felt his fingertips fill with energy, spreading through his whole hand and slowly through his whole body. He was sweating. He had never brought a human being back to life before, but, as he suspected, it was way harder than doing it with a squirrel. His heart raced, and he hoped he had enough energy to go till the end. He couldn’t let another good person die on his account. Suddenly, her eyes moved, and she gasped as the air returned to her lungs.

“William?” She said, weakly, as she focused her eyes on him.

He thought of just leaving, not making any kind of connection with her, but he couldn’t help the words that came out of his mouth.

“We’re even now.”

Then he smiled and quickly climbed the stairs, hoping that all that had happened here tonight had changed his visions of the future for the better, even if just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this epilogue thinking that if Chris Carter could get away with CSM not dying after taking a missile to the head, maybe I can get away with William bringing people back from the dead. Maybe not my brightest idea, but still, I needed closure somehow.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings as I tried to make sense of this episode. It looks happier to me this way, so I hope it looks a little happier to some of you too.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated.


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